'twill" 


Bancroft-  Library 


Library 


At  §>an  Diego 


MADGE    MORRIS. 


ERE  first  on  California's  soil, 

Cabrillo  walked  the  lonesome   sands; 
Here  first  the  Christian  standard  rose 

Upon  the  sea-washed  Western  lands, 
And  Junipero  Serra  first 

Laid  loving  hands. 

What  saw  they  here  that  peerless  band, 
To  bless,  or  touch  with  loving  hand  ? 
Or  bid  them  pause,  or  dream  to  stay, 
Around  this  silent  sleeping  bay  ? 


An  acreage  of  many  miles, 

Vast  miles  of  sun-burnt  naked  space, 
Red,  brown,  and  bare,  and  baked  as  tiles; 

Whose  surface  lay  unchanged  of  face 
As  it  had  lain,  the  hills  among, 
Since  first  Creation's  psalm  was  sung  ; 
Whose  people  watched  the  squirrels  play, 
And  knew  not  any  more  than  they. 


Not  these  alone,  the  fathers  saw 

Not  these  made  hardships  doubly  sweet- 
He  never  sees  his  arrow's  flight 

Who's  always  looking  at  his  feet— 


Those  holy  fathers,   wiser  they, 

They  marked  the  broad    expanse    of  plains, 
And  mountains  gushing-  crystal  life 

Enough  to  fill  its  thirsting  veins;— 
They  saw,  far  off,  the  mingled  weft 

Of  colors  wrought  from  out  the  soil, 
When  nature  rounds  upon  her  loom 

The  laborers  legacy  of  toil. 

And  served,  and  toiled,  and  built,  and  planned, 
But  ever  saw  a  promised  land; 
And  heard  its  slowly  rising  swells 
Ring  joyous  from  their  mission  bells. 
And  decades   past,  and  fifty  years, 

A  century  was  born  and  died ; 
A  nation  struggled  into  birth, 


And  rose  to  mid-day  of  its  pride. 
And  freedom's  war-wet  staff  was  set 

Beside  that  one  of  love  and  peace ; 
And  suns  of  noons,  and  midnight  moons, 

Unwove,  and  wove  time's  ageless  fleece. 

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And  time  crept  by  the  mission  bells, 

And  back,  and  tied  their  tongues  with  rust, 
And  touched  the  eye-lids  of  the  priest, 

And  garmented  his  bones  with  dust. 
The  glory  of  the  mission  passed, 
Its  gloom,  its  glory  over -cast. 
Within  its  corners,  shadow- walled, 
The  bats  built  nests ;    the  lizard  crawled 
Upon  the  sunny  side  to  sit, 
With  soulless  eyes,  and  laugh  at  it. 


But  smile  not  ye  with  scornful  lips. 

Nor  croak  a  prophecy  of  this ; 
There's  nothing  lost,  that's  lost,  and  naught 

That  once  has  lived,  has  lived  amiss. 
Nay,  smile  not  ye,  nor  count  that  false 

Which  failed  in  promises  it  gave, 
For  gold  is  gold,  though  it  go  down 

A  thousand  fathoms  in  the  wave ; 
And  brighter  hued  the  blossom  is 

That  blooms  upon  a  grave. 
In  silence  sleeps  the  bay  no  more 

Its  treasury  of  wealth  is  found; 
And  all  its  crescent  curving  shore 

With  infant  cities  girded  round; 
And  through  its  gateway  come  and  go 
The  sails  of  sun,  and  sails  of  snow. 


And  progress  to  this  old  new  West 

Has  turned  her  face  and  set  her  seal; 
Has  bound  the  waters,  broke  the  hills, 

And  shod  the  desert  sands  with  steel. 
O  land  of  sun! — hot,  splendid  sun, 

Of  sea-cool  winds,  and  Southern  moons  1 
Of  days  of  calm,  and  nights  of  balm, 

And  langorous  dreamy  noons ! 
It  needs  no  seer  to  tell  for  thee, 
Thy  quickly  coming  destiny. 


MoMEng  Co.,  N 


